Judges 19

Sometimes it is our lot, in consecutive reading to happen upon the more sordid topics of scripture and Judges 19 is certainly that. What debauchery and how our depravity wants to wade in the slough of despicable nature in one way or the other. Either we engage the sordid thought and linger there to our shame and ill profit or we judge those who do. Both are just as dangerous to the soul and the behavior.

I love to remember the grace of God and rejoice that He has saved me and remember the redemption of others in scripture and how they also processed these debauched seasons of history. Ie.In the book of Ruth, I love the sentiments of the women as they blessed her. God is the only difference between us and your people. The believers will always know that. God allows us in His mercy to see this with Israel in Judges 19-

Are we different from Sodom? Are we different from Moab? Who we are taught to despise as dogs? This shows that but for the mercy of God, debauchery of every account is more rampant among us than we know. No sooner is the word penned that they are doing what is right in their own eyes that they are fallen in total depravity of behavior. Ruth’s women said the Lord Bless you like Tamar. Redeemed inspite of what people will say about you. They have labels that they put upon us as women for our heritage, but only God is the strength of my life and my portion forever” May God cleanse and redeem you that you would be among the matriarchs for the distance that you have come and your deep love for our sister. All that seems in their blessing of her. We don’t see your skin and your difference we only see that God has touched you and that is enough for us. Shame on the time of the judges, but may we be always knowing that lack of respect for the means of restraint can cause a swift social decline and prayer and crying women have oft been the means God has used to clean up the pits where we’ve fallen.

The Gift of New Testament Communion with God is a greater covenant

The Bible in a year {meditations} Judges 13-15 and Luke 6:27-49

What a greater treasure we have in Christ, even than the ability to have the spirit come upon us as Samson did. We have the abiding presence of God the Holy Spirit. We have a more excellent promise of being more than a conqueror in the battle that matters most; our soul’s great battle.

Daily, the Phillistines of our own temptations come upon us and the blessed Holy Spirit allows us the sense of His help to grow in mortification and when we fall, an advocate pleading for us. Are we the wise people building upon the Rock? Are we seeing the winds and the waves beating upon us as all houses will? Truly they beat upon us. We may stumble and bumble, numerous times and we can know that God is endeared to us through Christ.

We have just as much of Him as we desire to have. He is predisposed to be concerned about us because of the sacrifice of Christ. He is loving and kind and tender hearted and giving us the best gift most; Himself. Everything else is just a byproduct of who He is to us.

Are we His? This should be our most important identity. Are we building for Him? This should be our greatest expression of service. Are we enjoying communion with Him? This should be our most precious relationship. I think that is the hardest. So many dear ones and so little time to enjoy them, still God says to us, as Jesus said to Peter and as Elohim said to Abraham…”Lovest Thou Me More than these?”

You have a loving heart to God and He will challenge you to love Him. In giving for the building for His Kingdom, in devotions, in service to family and church. Samson and even Abraham had not the depth of communion as the Church has in Christ. Halleluia, what a Savior.

Christ is the Answer to the tears of pain, too.

Poor and powerless of spirit Blessed are the poor in spirit. All the hearts that are content And all who feel unworthy, All who hurt with nothing left, Will know that Jesus is holy.

Christ revealed in scripture and in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is a salve to the soul. Holy Jesus. Comforting and enlivening worship. What dulls worship more than a sense that we are sufficient for these things in ourselves. Loud dull or quiet dull is dull worship. Is our heart comforted or distressed in worship. Both are good. Nothing in worship, that is bad.

I probably would not be as sensorious to God’s presence in worship, if it had not been a 25 year trek through unbelief and emotional pain looking for the comfort of God in grief. God is there in grief, but you can get bogged in the quicksand of sad occasions. Blaming God is the devil’s business. He does it well. How can we know that You are holy, in this? Is the question to God. How can we see you as just in this hard trial.

Get over it, is the world’s answer. You are bigger than this. You are stronger than your pain and you are a conqueror. Are you? In Christ alone, you are! Where there is no struggle there is no overcoming.

It does say, they {not he or she} They overcame him{the devil and his accusations against God’s goodness and mercy in everything} by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimonies. They did not love their lives unto death. They were committed to the truth that God is married to His Church and their comfort was in the comfort of oneanother. God’s church prevails, not the lone ranger, essentially.

He knit me together in my mother’s womb. He is knitting His church together for His glory in these days of time.

He Calls Our Name

“For the sake of the call”, “if we answer”

Jesus calls us to greater communion. To forsake the muck and mire of our present experiences into communion with Him; into a knowledge that our words are a small representation of His magnificence. Where are you? This question, which was a call to judgment to our first parents is a call to see the truth of what we speak about God is even more true.

Sometimes, we praise in unbelief. I know that there is always a measure of unbelief in the highest words. Are these just superlatives that I launch into the air with no reality attached? Or we close our mouths afraid to say the words for fear that our words cannot encompass the reality of whom we speak. Both are true. Is that not the case? When we afraid to speak of Him, He is worthy of such fear of our words being too small. And when we speak we are truly unable to have faith enough to overpile superlatives. David says, I will use my words to bless His name, however paultry or inept they may be. I will use my silence to bless His name, He says in other places.

A true example of seeking the heart of God was David. My unbelief will not dissuade me from praise, says David. The shame of what others will say, will not dissuade me from praise as with his wife Michael. Nor, the ineptitude of the concepts being so small to express real magnificence will not keep me from exalting His magnificence. He is worthy of the praise, loud or silent. It is always too small! His magnificence is always more!

This is my Father's World and to my "listening ears"?

"All nature rings and round me sings the music of the spheres"

Am I listening to the music rejoicing in Christ, my Savior? I am so often, pining my circumstances, in March, that my ears are dulled to the goodness and rejoicing creation around me.

I am in restoration season and yet the birthday and Easter muster up hard thoughts of God's goodness. Praise is necessary to keep them in check in my soul. Kind friends' reminders to walk circumspectly and to keep the disciplines in the forefront of my mind are some of God's means to harness my soul from utter despair in this hard month. God is good and a very present help in the time of trouble. When the trouble is ones own heart and mind, the remedy must be searched for. I think of old Pastor Nelson in the scene in Lloyds of London, "wipe your sister's nose, Anne." Father in Heaven has my nose in His heart and has often bid an elder sister or brother to wipe it for me.

I am so critical of old Pastor Nelson for my preference for Horatio's perspective. Not today, I know that my Heavenly Father is severe and kind and watches over His dear ones with all of their need in His mind. I think that Pastor Nelson showed me that in that movie. He was trying to hold a bunch of broken hearted children and that is not easy. Severity notwithstanding. This is my Father, in Heaven's World.

What do you want? I want to listen.

Audacious Listening for the Help of God.

Hearing from God’s Word that He is a present help in a time of need and knowing that God is a present help in a time of need are two different things aren’t they? I am holding my Bible and it tells me that Jesus loves me. But does it ring true in the trials of life? Audi tory factories help me to perceive the truth. Visual perceptors pick up the images, but sometimes there is a disconnect between the senses and the senses. Burned emotions, burned nerve endings, burned expectations and burned outworkings of things make you feel completely numb sometimes. Where are you God? You ask and you feel justified in doing so.

Faith is the evidence

Exhibit A” where is it?

It certainly isn’t in the casket, with my baby. It certainly isn’t at the grave with you, although the Holy Spirit will unexpectedly carry you above the circumstances and show You that He has a plan for this to work for your good. Jesus paid the price for your sins and you are certainly glad of that with the unbelieving rantings that pound and harass your heart in such times of blatant unbelief. Where is it?

Faith is the evidence

Exhibit B It is certainly not in my heart at such times. The heart is deceptive and desparately wicked, who can know it? God knows it. God knows your heart doesn’t believe Him. All I want is an answer, Lord, you feel like saying. Nothing for the believer to do, but hold his/her tongue and thank God for His presence. When mind is not present, and heart is not present and nerves are numb from the shock of the situation. God’s presence is the only exhibit A that you will ever have. “My heart and my flesh fails but God is the strength of my life and my portion forever.” Scripture says.

Just like the turkey grease on mom and the water on Elyse’s feet that seer the skin and make the nerves tough. Hard providences blister the soul and the heart and the mind. Drink much of the chicken soup of God’s Word. He is there. Cry upon His shoulder, when everyone looks at you as if to say, aren’t you over this yet. NOOOOO! 25 years?

Not till we get to glory will we ever understand that the AUDA”CITY” is the City that God has planted in our hearts. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

God on the Mountain, Valley and everywhere in between, {Gen 30- Matthew 8}

Providentially to go to the birth of Gad and the Gadarene demoniac’s deliverance is certainly mentionable. Jesus had in mind to contend with the ingrained animosity of Gad, from the beginning of his existence among the mandrakes. Jesus knows what a spirit we engender into our offspring and what will become of them on account of our attitudes. Christ is well acquainted with our griefs and our acceptances. If Joseph is always known for being the longed for child from mother and father. Then certainly Gad is known for being the unwanted and unexpected and unplanned for by mother and father. But the machinations of the sibling rivalry of Rachel and Leah outpoured upon their servants and the children. God weaves this into the tapestry of redemption so beautifully.

Do you want to be among the people of God? They always said I want Israel as much as Israel wanted me. Not much! God says I am not like Israel in wanting you. I am not like the dispassionate and ungrateful father who could care less and dotes not on this child or that. God has only wanted children and He will and does travel across the water and through the tempest and walking on water and traverses the animosity of the crowd to deliver us from every untoward spirit that would assault our souls, in our spiritual distempter. He is the mighty deliverer of Gad and of everyone who comes to God, not in and through Israel’s great or not great love, but those who come to God in and through Israels Redeemer and Son of His Covenant with God! Lord Jesus! Halleluia, What a Savior!